Is the Bacon Coffin Another 'Taco Liberty Bell?'

J&D Foods announced on Facebook that they would like to bury you in bacon – literally.

That’s right, in the tradition of creating absurd bacon inspired products – see “baconaise” and “bacon salt” - they now bring you the “Bacon Coffin.”

However, with April Fools day fast approaching, is the coffin a hoax meant to rally some publicity for these purveyors of pork? A story in Huffington Post this morning points to the likelihood of this scenario.

It wouldn’t be the first time a company was inspired to pull an April Fool's Day prank on its customers. In 1996 Taco Bell proclaimed that it purchased the Liberty Bell and that it would henceforth be known as the “Taco Liberty Bell.”

Google is a perennial prankster - those of you who tried to control your gmail accounts through body motion know this. They even changed their name to Topeka for a day.

The list goes on, but how much publicity do these stunts generate? Taco Bell estimated that they generated $20 to $25 million in free publicity from their prank and Burger King allegedly had millions of left-handed customers asking for the new burger.

Even if the pranks don’t generate the kind of publicity that translates into dollar figures, it connects them to the people consuming their products. It enables people to look past a corporate entity and see something relatable in the people that work there.

J&D insists that the bacon coffin is real product that is available for purchase for $2,999.99. The company has a history of releasing "ridiculous bacon products" — that's how they refer to it on their web site — around April Fool's Day, including baconbaby infant formula in 2010, and BaconAir. "Was it a coincidence that we launched this one right around April Fool's Day?" they ask on their site? "Probably, but we'll never tell."

They may get a huge response to such a unique product — real or not — and the publicity is something you can’t buy.